


all the world to see

by endquestionmark



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the prompt "marcus bell/sherlock holmes do whatever you want i just need fanworks of these two ok", by <a href="http://tendertransterror.tumblr.com/">tendertransterror</a>.  Originally posted at <a href="http://endquestionmark.tumblr.com/post/34549063640/tendertransterror-answered-your-question-taking">tumblr</a>, and based on episodes 1.01 and 1.02.</p><p>If any of this is problematic in any way, please do let me know!</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the world to see

Marcus Bell has a third-floor walkup in Hamilton Heights when he joins the force; Marcus Bell has a sick mother; Marcus Bell has an uncle in the force.   _What a cliche, right?_  he says, every time he introduces himself.   _All that’s missing is a kid brother who I want to grow up in a better world._

Marcus Bell has learned not to mention the four years he spent at Harvard (he is sick of the knowing glances, the automatic assumption that casts him as affirmative action, a necessary block of filler), the fact that his mother is a successful lawyer, the way his uncle was forced out after refusing to fill a stop-and-frisk monthly quota.

He tells himself that he’s holding back to see what people think of him.  He tells himself that anybody who jumps to conclusions isn’t somebody worth the truth.  He tells himself that he’s more than a cliche, and anybody who can’t realize that isn’t worth the stab-twist of his stomach every time somebody says,  _you’re supporting her, what a good son; he was a force for good in the community, what an inspiration_.  He isn’t supporting her.  She’s supporting herself.  He wasn’t a force for good in the community, not two months after increased stop-and-frisk quotas, when people wouldn’t look him in the face at the Associated supermarket, when somebody smashed his windshield, when people crossed the street when they saw him coming.

He can tell himself whatever the hell he wants, but three years later there is not a single person who has bothered to look properly.  Not at him, of course, but at themselves - at their preconceptions, at the lens through which they look at him.  They all examine him - they never see if their worldview is distorted, fisheye, stretched and swimming with blur.  He tells himself that it’s not worth overturning what people think of him - good cop, good son, good nephew.  It’s better than the alternative, after all.  (That’s something he tells himself a lot.  Better than the alternative when every beat cop on his way home follows him past with their eyes, better than the alternative when he gets followed around a store.  Small victories are better than none, aren’t they?)

Three and a half years later, Sherlock Holmes walks onto a murder scene and, for all that Joan Watson is steel-brushed and scalpel-sharp, it’s Holmes who shears through the layers of soap-bubble-scum, the swimming reflections and oil-slick rainbow, who says, for the first time in three and a half years,  _why do you do it, then?_

“Not for you,” he says, on reflex - what he would say to his mother.  What he would say for his uncle.  What he might say to Joan Watson or Javier Abreu.  ”And it sure as hell isn’t your right to ask.”

“No, I know,” Holmes says, fiddling with a pen, twisting it between his fingers.  ”Watson tells me that.”

“Good on her,” Bell says.

“I just wondered, though,” he says.  ”Not for your mother.  Not for your uncle.  You’re an only child.”

“You’re the boy wonder,” Bell says, folding his arms.  Defensive body language.  ”Figure it out.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Holmes says, flipping the pen and utterly failing to catch it.  It bounces off Gregson’s back.  ”Do you?”

“Mind?” Bell asks, straightening up in surprise.  ”Hit me with your best shot, then.”

“Did you make a friend, then,” Watson says, wandering in.  The neighbor has been taken away in handcuffs.  Gregson is clipping the pen to his breast pocket.

“I don’t have friends,” Holmes says, on what looks like reflex.

“A possibility, then,” Bell says, and the slight quirk of Holmes’ lips makes his stomach twist a little again.  Not a stab, but a flutter.  What a cliche, right.  Fight fire with fire.  ”Shakespeare.”

“Aren’t those the best,” Holmes says.  ”A wise man knows himself to be a fool, isn’t that the case?”

“You’re halfway there, then,” Bell says, and almost smiles.


End file.
